There were gasps all around.
Finally. Now I was getting somewhere.
“Oh my God,” Sissy breathed.
“No shit?” Ally asked.
“No shit,” I told her. “That means we have to find him first and make him pay by turning him over to the proper authorities.”
“I know some proper authorities,” Roxie said.
“Me too,” Jet put in.
“Practically my whole family is proper authorities,” Indy added.
“Right, they come in later, first we have to catch him,” I went on and looked at Duke, Tex and Smithie. “Everyone with me?”
The girls, Tod and Stevie nodded.
Tex, Duke and Smithie did not.
Shit.
“Are you guys here as members of the Rock Chick gang or are you here as informants for the Hot Bunch?” I asked them.
“Shit, woman,” Tex said but I noted he didn’t answer my question.
“I’m being serious,” I told him, sounding just as serious as I was being, which was ultra serious. “If you’re here as informants, take off now. If you’re not, you can stay. Either way, I don’t want you talking me out of this. My crush on Lucas Stark began when I was eight years old. Now, twenty years later, he’s mine. He just caved in a locker with his fist, for goodness sakes. God knows what he’s going to do to Noah when he catches him. I’m not spending the next twenty to life visiting him in a penitentiary. Got me?”
Tex, Duke and Smithie just stared at me.
“Got me?” I snapped.
Tex looked at Duke “She’s got spunk,” he said.
“Where I come from, we call it sass,” Duke replied.
“Where I come from, we call it attitude,” Smithie put in.
“Oh for the love of God, whatever you call it, are you in or are you out?” Jules clipped.
Smithie looked at me. “I don’t know about your firsts and seconds or A’s and B’s, all I know is, Jet told me a friend of hers got violated. I ain’t down with that shit. I don’t care who nails this motherfucker, I just wanna be in on nailin’ him. So yeah, I’m f**kin’ in.”
“In,” Duke growled.
“Fuck yeah, I’m in,” Tex boomed.
I nodded to them. Once. “All righty then, here’s my plan.”
And I told them my plan. It was kind of a shit plan but luckily Indy, Ally and Jules had ideas to share and they were better than mine. In the end, I felt all right because instead of a half-assed plan, we had a pretty decent one.
When we were done, Tod raised his hand and I nodded to him.
“Can I just ask, after we find this guy, can we talk about the Vibrator Ceremony? I’m thinking of making us all kind of choir like robes to wear but with sequins and some satin sashes as belts. Maybe in chartreuse.”
It was then I was wishing someone would shoot me.
* * * * *